Popular Festivals

After last week’s singles column swerve-ball, where we actually reviewed the tracks in-house (wanna read?), Clash is back to business with a band taking up the responsibility of passing judgment on the week’s new releases.

This week: Patterns. Who are, for those unaware, a Manchester band tipped for a 2014 breakthrough by the likes of the Guardian, NME and our very own selves. Dream pop is a term bandied about in the presence of their material – songs which, come January, will be collected on an album titled ‘Walking Lines’, out via Melodic. Sounds reet decent.

Get experienced: stream the band’s ‘Our Ego’ below, ahead of their (we’re going to assume joint-effort) opinions on the week’s new singles. (How very dare they insult Supergrass.)

Mayer’s sickly and unconvincing love for life makes you think he’s on the verge of some horrible breakdown. With lyrics that can only have been written for his therapist as an exercise in positive thinking, this deserves a Fail. Get back on the couch.

This band always gives us the unnerving feeling that they make music purely for advertising tie-ins (see also: Moby). They manage to bastardise the youthful optimism of M83 and make it into something lifeless and corporate. Total arse biscuits.

Right, so we can ascertain from the first 30 seconds of this song that Gaz Coombes definitely owns alt-j’s album. We’d say this kind of mimicry slightly damages his artistic credibility, but when you start at Supergrass maybe anything’s an improvement.